El-Sisi Widens Crackdown on Egyptian Civil Society, Journalists After Palm Sunday Church Bombings
by mail@democracynow.org (Democracy Now!) from Democracy Now! on (#2JRCH)
Funerals have begun in Egypt for victims of two bomb attacks targeting Coptic Christian churches on Sunday. At least 49 people were killed, and over 100 people were injured. ISIS has claimed responsibility for the attacks, which targeted the St. George's Coptic church in the northern city of Tanta and the St. Mark's Cathedral in Alexandria. Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi responded by declaring a three-month state of emergency. The state of emergency gives el-Sisi's government even further power to continue its crackdown against human rights activists and journalists. For more, we speak with Sharif Abdel Kouddous, Democracy Now! correspondent and a Nation Institute fellow, in Cairo.